Gore Mtn 3/14/08

[Harvey44]

Ski Day 25

This is more of a Bomb Damage Assessment than a TR. I got up this morning in NJ when the baby woke up around 6:45 am. I fed her, and ran some Elmo while I packed, then gave her to her sleepy mother.

I got off by about 8 and got here at one. No stops, no food, no nothin. I really wanted to see the damage from the storm that took out power for 4 days here in Johnsburg. According to National Grid, 990 homes were without power for most of those 4 days. Anybody know many homes are in Johnsburg? I bet 990 is a lot of them.

I was pretty anxious driving up our road. As you got above 1500 feet, down trees and saw dust were everywhere. At the bottom of our driveway, the remains of two big white pines that had been cut up by the power company. Farther up there were three more I had to cut through. The path from the end of the driveway to the cabin had 4 or 5 more. Somehow, both our buildings sat there untouched. I had heard from my plow guy that "I survived" but I was still nervous as hell walking up that drive. 4 or 5 big branches were on the ground within a few feet of our main building.

It's ridiculous I admit...we've got about 5 acres, and if we cut down all the trees within 60 or 90 feet of both buildings, we wouldn't have nearly as many trees. Roger...my plow guy says..."you can always tell the flatlanders...they won't cut down their trees." So I've sized up every tree and branch that is close to the cabin, to decide if it would do damage if it fell. Crazy flatlanders.

I cut downed timber for about an hour and a half, to get the truck up the hill and to clear the path. It was 2:30 and I realized that with the sun and temps in the upper 40s...the corn over at Gore might be better this afternoon than tomorrow or Sunday. I threw my gear on and drove to the hill. I was surprised how many cars were in the lot. I heard a lot of French and other languages in the base area. Of course there were no liftlines.

I got 5 runs in, in an hour. Pine Knot, Hawkeye, Cloud, Showcase and I finished with Twister at 4pm. The top was better...devoid of those really wet spots that can stop you dead. It was colder up there and the added pitch seems to drain the excess water better.

Conditions were pretty darn good. Carvable corn. I haven't really skied corned up groomers too much in my career. In fact I've done more corn groomers at Tahoe than in the east. It's was hard work teleying...but I knew I only had a few runs so I hit it hard.

Above 2500 feet, the trees were really ravaged. Some aspects were worse than others. Actually I expected worse, based on the damage I saw over at our place. I'd be very surprised if there was any more tree skiing at Gore this year. It makes me wonder too if the mountain will have the budget to clear it all out this summer.

About Walt's bumps... I didn't see anything that looked like a bump run on Hawkeye or anywhere else. What I did see was a bunch of snowmaking equipment lined up on Hawkeye, with no snowmaking temps in sight.

Not sure if I'll ski tomorrow or not. I got a bit more work to do with the saw. Then I'll either take off, or ski a few hours and book.

It's been a long day.

Harv

[megatron]

Nice report Harv. Glad to hear your place was totally unscathed. Believe it or not, only about half of the town was without power. I never lost power at all. As far as the clearing budget, it amounts to $0 . It will be a lot of sweat labor, but it will be well worth it
I was told by a snowmaker that they are firing the guns up tonight, temps be damned!. The fresh gank with then have to be skied in tomorrow morning by the Gore bump team
I at least gotta give Gore a E for effort. They are trying

[Harvey44]

Thanks Megaman.

They actually did a great job with the groomer on Hawkeye last night. But those bump seeds still need something...some man made... as they are just piles of death cookies without some soft coverage.